City of Shadows

Counterfeit Lady, Book 5

By: Victoria Thompson

Narrated by: Kate Forbes

Elizabeth Miles is back in this all-new Counterfeit Lady novel from USA Today best-selling author Victoria Thompson.

Elizabeth Miles Bates has returned from her honeymoon cruise and is taking great pride in having completely forsaken her past life as a con artist. Then her friend, Anna Vanderslice, begs her to use her talents to help save her widowed mother from a disreputable medium. Since the war and the flu epidemic left so many families bereaved, interest in contacting the dead has experienced a revival. Once quite popular, séances have come back into vogue as desperate families mourn their loved ones and long to communicate with them.

Anna's mother has been attending séances in an attempt to contact her son, David, who died of influenza. Anna had thought it a harmless activity, though a heartbreaking one, but she has just learned that Mrs. Vanderslice is paying the medium ever-increasing sums of money in her eagerness to make contact with her deceased son. Since David's death has caused Anna and her mother financial hardship already, Mrs. Vanderslice's obsession is in danger of ruining them.

Madame Ophelia is part of a group of con artists working together to fleece as many New Yorkers as possible before moving onto another city. Several of Mrs. Vanderslice's friends as well as some of Gideon's clients have already been victimized. Elizabeth knows that simply exposing the medium as a fraud will not be enough, and the only way to get at least some of the stolen money back is to con the medium and her cohorts. But will Elizabeth's family help her when it means betraying other con artists? And who can they trust? No one, as it happens, so Elizabeth turns to her aunt, Cybil, and Cybil's partner, Zelda, for help. Although Cybil disapproves of her family's shady profession, she is more than happy to lend a hand. Can Elizabeth and her gang of amateurs fool the professionals?

©2021 Victoria Thompson (P)2021 Recorded Books, Inc.

Well written diversion

Shadows is, in my opinion, the best in the series. I find Thompson an author who can be too formulaic in her writing. I found this book formulaic yet diverting and worth the read.

Priceless

Love these cons the group thinks up! So unique and at times funny. But also serious as even today there are conmen out there trying to take people’s money!

Love this series and the narrator!!

Another Wonderful Book in this Series

I love the Counterfeit Lady series and Kate Forbes is a fantastic narrator. Highly recommend starting with Book 1 and reading them all.